BANGKOK, March 28 (TNA) - The Election Commission (EC) has announced full voting results with the Palang Pracharat Party (PPRP) taking the lead for the popular votes.

The PPRP won the popular votes with 8.4 million ballots, followed by Pheu Thai Party (7.9 million), Future Forward (6.2 million), said Krit Urwongse, the EC’s deputy secretary-general.

The Democrat Party got 3.9 million votes and the Bhumjaithai with 3.7 million votes. 

The voting results of 87 parties have been given to media members at the press conference. He said the information would be useful for calculating the number of party-list seats.

The total votes for constituency candidates are available on the EC website, he said.

There were 51 million eligible voters and voter turnout was 74.69 per cent or about 38 million people with 2.1 million invalidated ballots or 5.57 per cent. So far, the EC has received 186 complaints of irregularities for investigation. 

The results, announced today represented 100 percent of the vote counting but the official final results will be announced on May 9. 

The 350 constituency seats of the lower house are elected directly and the remaining 150 party-list seats are allocated, based on the total number of votes for each party.

The EC has said it will have to handle several complaints that could result in disqualifications of candidates; therefore they are unable to officially announce full number of seats.

Meanwhile, pressure has been mounted on the EC with nearly a million people signing up to call for resignations of the election commissioners.  A student group has campaigned for sackings of the commissioners.

After Pheu Thai claiming a mandate to form the next government and announcing an alliance with six parties on Wednesday, the pro-Prayut PPRP has said they will not counter the move but wait for official results.

Experts say ultimately who has the mandate to form a coalition government will be decided in a parliamentary session, expected in late May.  All 500 lawmakers and 200 senators will cast their vote to select a prime minister, who then appoints his or her ministers.

Source: TNA